On reading these astonishing ideas about "sovereignty"--"sovereignty" over all the natural rights of mankind--"sovereignty," as it prevailed in Europe "at the time of the framing and adoption of the constitution of the United States"--we are compelled to see that these judges obtained their constitutional law, not from the constitution itself, but from the example of the "Divine Right" governments existing in Europe a hundred years ago. These judges seem never to have heard of the American Revolution, or the French Revolution, or even of the English Revolutions of the seventeenth century--revolutions fought and accomplished to overthrow these very ideas of "sovereignty," which these judges now proclaim, as the supreme law of this country. They seem never to have heard of the Declaration of Independence, nor of any other declaration of the natural rights of human beings. To their minds, "the sovereignty of governments" is everything; human rights nothing. They apparently cannot conceive of such a thing as a people's establishing a government as a means of preserving their personal liberty and rights. They can only see what fearful calamities "sovereign governments" would be liable to, if they could not compel their "subjects"--the people--to support them against their will, and at every cost of their property, liberty, and lives. They are utterly blind to the fact, that it is this very assumption of "sovereignty" over all the natural rights of men, that brings governments into all their difficulties, and all their perils. They do not see that it is this very assumption of "sovereignty" over all men's natural rights, that makes it necessary for the "Divine Right" governments of Europe to maintain not only great standing armies, but also a vile purchased priesthood, that shall impose upon, and help to crush, the ignorant and superstitious people. These judges talk of "the _constitutions_" of these "sovereign governments" of Europe, as they existed "at the time of the framing and adoption of the constitution of the United States." They apparently do not know that those governments had no constitutions at all, except the Will of God, their standing armies, and the judges, lawyers, priests, pimps, spies, and ruffians they kept in their service. If these judges had lived in Russia, a hundred years ago, and had chanced to be visited with a momentary spasm of manhood--a fact hardly to be supposed of such creatures--and had been sentenced therefor to the knout, a dungeon, or Siberia, would we ever afterward have seen them, as judges of our Supreme Court, declaring that government to be the model after which ours was formed?